An Opening Note from Keuka Roots:
When “Achy Breaky Heart” Brings You Back to Penn Yan
The other day I was listening to music from decades ago when “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus came on the radio.
And just like that — I was no longer in my kitchen.
I was back at Penn Yan's Buckwheat Festival, standing in a crowd at the Yates County Fairgrounds, watching a young country singer with a mullet and a guitar bring the place to life.
If you were there, you remember it.
The music.
The crowds.
The smell of buckwheat pancakes in the air.
And the feeling that for one weekend each September, Penn Yan became the center of the universe.
Of course once that memory popped into my head, I did what any curious local storyteller would do.
I went digging.
Old newspaper clippings.
Local records.
Bits of festival history tucked away in archives.
And the deeper I looked, the more I realized something remarkable:
The Buckwheat Festival wasn’t just a small-town event.
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Long before fall festivals and food trucks seemed to appear everywhere and our area became a 'tourist' destination,
Penn Yan had one of the most unique agricultural celebrations in the country — the Buckwheat Harvest Festival.
For nearly fifteen years, from
1986 through 1999, thousands of people poured into the village each September to celebrate something that had quietly shaped the region for generations:
buckwheat.
At the heart of it all was
The Birkett Mills, the historic Penn Yan company that has been milling buckwheat for well over a century and remains one of the
oldest and largest buckwheat mills in the United States. Their products — from pancake mix to kasha — have made their way onto breakfast tables across the country, but for one weekend each year, the spotlight belonged to Penn Yan itself.
And what a spotlight it was.
A Festival Built on Local Roots
The
Buckwheat Harvest Festival wasn’t just about food — it was a full-blown community celebration.
Each year the village transformed into a lively fairground filled with the sounds of music, laughter, and the steady hum of thousands of visitors exploring downtown
Penn Yan.
Festival-goers could expect:
- A colorful
community parade
- Live music and comedy acts
- Animal shows and family entertainment
- A bustling
midway with rides and games
- Food vendors serving every imaginable buckwheat creation
And those foods went far beyond pancakes.
Creative cooks found ways to work buckwheat into everything if I remember correctly from
pizza dough and hot dog rolls to
kasha dishes, candy bars, and even buckwheat ice cream. It was a celebration of agricultural creativity — and a reminder that the
Finger Lakes region has always been a place where farming and ingenuity go hand in hand.
But one moment would forever cement the festival into local legend.
The Day Penn Yan Cooked a World Record Pancake
On
September 27, 1987, Penn Yan made international headlines.
That morning, festival organizers set out to cook the
world’s largest buckwheat pancake — and they succeeded in spectacular fashion.
The griddle itself would become part of history. The numbers still sound almost unbelievable:
- 28 feet, 1 inch in diameter
- More than 10 tons in weight
Creating the pancake required an operation that looked more like a construction project than breakfast.
The batter alone required:
- 2,000 pounds of buckwheat mix
- 2,000 gallons of water
- 15 gallons of syrup
- A 68-pound vat of butter
A
sterilized cement mixer was used to pour the batter onto the enormous griddle.
And when it came time to flip the pancake?
A
75-ton construction crane was brought in for the job.
Thousands of spectators watched as the massive pancake turned in the air — a moment that felt equal parts county fair, engineering experiment, and small-town spectacle.
For a brief moment in time,
Penn Yan held the world record.
Did You Know? Big Names Once Took the Buckwheat Festival Stage
One of the things people sometimes forget about the
Buckwheat Harvest Festival is just how big it became in the 1990s. What started as a celebration of local agriculture slowly grew into a regional event that attracted
national touring musicians.
Some surprisingly big names made their way to the festival stage.
Billy Ray Cyrus
In the mid-1990s,
Billy Ray Cyrus performed at the Buckwheat Festival while riding the enormous success of his hit
Achy Breaky Heart. His appearance drew massive crowds to Penn Yan and remains one of the most talked-about concerts in the festival’s history.
Sammy Kershaw
Country music star
Sammy Kershaw also headlined during the later years of the festival, bringing his Louisiana-style country sound to thousands of festival-goers gathered at the fairgrounds.
Charlie Daniels
Another legendary performer connected with the festival was
Charlie Daniels, the fiery fiddle-playing country rocker behind
The Devil Went Down to Georgia. His appearance added even more star power to the event during its peak popularity.
For one weekend each September, Penn Yan briefly became a major concert stop in the Finger Lakes. Tens of thousands of people packed into the festival grounds to hear live music, eat buckwheat pancakes, wander the midway, and celebrate the region’s agricultural heritage.
It’s one of those wonderful Penn Yan memories that still surprises newcomers — that once upon a time, a small village on the north end of
Keuka Lake could draw world records, country music stars, and
tens of thousands of visitors… all for a humble little grain called buckwheat.
The Griddle That Still Stands
Although the pancake record was eventually surpassed in
1994, one piece of that remarkable day remains right here in Penn Yan.
The
massive griddle used to cook the pancake was preserved and mounted permanently on the outside wall of
The Birkett Mills building.
If you drive through Penn Yan today, you can still see it — a quiet monument to a moment when a small Finger Lakes village briefly captured the world’s attention with a breakfast food.
For those who remember the festival, the sight of that enormous griddle instantly brings back memories of
music drifting through the fairground, crowds lining the sidewalks for the parade, and the smell of buckwheat pancakes cooking in the autumn air.
When the Festival Became Too Big
By the late 1990s, the Buckwheat Harvest Festival had grown far beyond what anyone originally imagined.
Crowds swelled to
30,000–40,000 visitors during peak years — an incredible number for a village the size of Penn Yan.
But success can sometimes create its own challenges.
With so many people attending, the festival became increasingly difficult for local organizers and volunteers to manage safely. Logistics, traffic, crowd control, and staffing eventually pushed the event beyond what the small community could reasonably sustain
.
After the
1999 festival, the event quietly came to an end.
🌿
Keuka Roots Closing Note
Sometimes the biggest stories grow from the most unexpected places.
A simple grain.
A mill.
A harvest.
A pancake big enough to need a crane.
And "Achy Breaky Heart" being sung by thousands with Billy Ray Cyrus.
And for a few remarkable autumn days each year all those decades ago,
Penn Yan reminded the world that even the smallest towns can cook up something unforgettable.
Stay Rooted. Stay Keuka.
